Bullets, tears and hopes for peace as Arafat dies

YASSER ARAFAT, the guerrilla icon turned Nobel Peace Prize winner who ended up isolated and locked in renewed conflict with Israel, died yesterday, his dream of a Palestinian state unfulfilled. He was 75.

The announcement of the death of the Palestinian leader ended days of confusion over his fate as he lay comatose behind a shroud of secrecy in a Paris hospital.

Mr Arafat died after suffering a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday at the Paris hospital where he was flown on October 29 from the West Bank headquarters, where he had been penned by Israel for more than 2½ years. Details of his illness remain a mystery.